Marcus Brigstocke brings tour to Northampton

By Steve Mills

Published:06:00Friday 14 October 2016

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The most pertinent question to ask comedian Marcus Brigstocke is why the long face? It is after all the name of his new show.

Speaking ahead if his show coming to Northampton, he told us that such troubling matters including Brexit, austerity, Donald Trump, cheese strings, Isis, tax avoiders and the inexplicable popularity of nail bars.

But now, in typically brilliant fashion, Marcus has turned his frown upside down. It explores why in actual fact he has many reasons to be cheerful.

He said: “I’d had a messy breakup, and the show came about when I began to feel better. The show is all about gratitude.

“I’m a straight white man – life doesn’t get much better than that. It’s awesome. Everything is set up for me to be comfortable – very much at the cost of everyone else! So I’m enormously grateful to women, gay people and people from ethnic minorities!”

He carries on that: “Being a comedian is a great job. My kids are happy and healthy. I own a house, for Christ’s sake.

“I’m blissfully happy in a new relationship. I really have nothing I should not be grateful for, and yet I spend a lot of time gnashing my teeth and railing against the system.

“So the show is about saying, ‘Hang on a minute. I actually have a very charmed life, and I should be very grateful for it.”

Marcus, who promises that he will bring his record player and vinyl collection on stage to help cheer people up, has been particularly exercised by the result of the recent EU referendum.

He added: “My stock in trade as always been to ask why I am unhappy. A big part of that recently has been Brexit. It’s an absolute passion for me.

“As far as I can see, it was just a big campaign of lies. However, there are still people saying, ‘It’s all for the best’.

“But we’re going to have to line up in the queue with non-EU passports, for goodness sake! That’s a practical issue that no one has thought about. I don’t want to have to go down that aisle.”

Marcus’s shows always end with a bang, and “Why the Long Face?” will be no exception.

But the comedian is reluctant to spoil the surprise of it. “I can’t say what the ending will be, but it’s something that I’m both enormously excited about and enormously ashamed of.

“People will not be disappointed. Afterwards, they will have an image that they won’t be able to get out of their heads, no matter what!”

Marcus will be at Northampton’s Royal & Derngate on Thursday October 20 starting at 8pm. Call 01604 624811 or visit www.royalandderngate.co.uk.